


last march

by forgettheghosts



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Suicide, clone culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:13:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25947892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgettheghosts/pseuds/forgettheghosts
Summary: Cody remembers.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 3
Kudos: 98





	last march

**Author's Note:**

> tw suicide and vomiting.  
> I love fix it fics with all my heart, but I don't think Cody would take remembering very well. I think Clone culture was probably an interesting mix of Jedi and Mandalorian beliefs, which I try to discuss here.  
> unbetad.

> The force is one with me, I am one with the force. 
> 
> _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_ \- "Not gone, merely marching far away"

* * *

Cody woke up with a prayer on his lips.

Some of the more secular _jetiis_ had insisted with all seriousness that it was _not_ a prayer, no matter how desperately it was chanted by _vode_ hunkered down trying to hold the last defensive line, or by _jetii_ knelt on the ground of a battlefield using every ounce of their strength on some insane force trick, clawing victory out of thin air- _not thin air, Cody, the force is around us, always._

There had been disagreement among the _vode_ as to what the Force really was, or how you became one with it. The general agreement was that wherever the farthest march, the last march, took you, the Force provided the battleground. The last cruiser, the final hyperspeed shift. Millions of brothers marching into the Force. Not gone, but made one, on a march far away. 

He had heard it in a variety of languages. Usually it was in Basic, but some of the _vode_ uttered it in Mando’a, others in whatever the first language of their General was. Cody has always stuck to Basic, just like Obi Wan had, crisp Coruscanti accent making everything sound so educated and well considered. 

_(His General had liked hearing all the trooper’s opinions on the Force, their beliefs and thoughts. Some jetiis argued that the Clones were speaking heretically, using the teachings of the Jedi for their own purposes. Obi Wan had argued they were privileged to see a new Force tradition and belief system form in real time.)_

It was at the memory of his Jedi’s name that Cody gasped, and remembered. 

He fell to his knees in front of his bunk. Chip damage- a crime for which he had ordered multiple _vode_ executed for in the past ten years. Few Clones survived in the Empire, like anyone other than nat-born humans. Their value was in their total subservience and lack of conscience owed to the chips. If the chips failed, there was no reason to keep them alive.

Cody had personally executed several of his brothers in the years since Umbara. He knew some of their names. Socker had still been a shiny. Jax had fallen at his _riduur’s_ feet, begging to be recognized, sobbing for mercy. Fletch had stayed under the radar for a while, until he tried to prevent the massacre of a village during a raid. Cody shot him in the chest, then in the head. 

On his knees in front of his own bunk, the few surviving _vode_ on the ship stared at him impassively. They wouldn’t fire unless ordered. 

_(Obi Wan had always said he couldn’t excuse those who said the Clones were indistinguishable from one another, because to him they all felt so different in the Force._

_“You’d be surprised,” he had said; “some of the quietest brothers have the most emotive presence in the Force. Some days on the bridge it can feel quite like a mouthful of those spices that keep sneaking into the mess hall.”_

_“Is that what I’m like, then? Spicy?” Cody had raised an eyebrow, and Obi Wan had laughed._

_“No, my dearest, you…” he had reached up a hand to Cody’s cheek, gently traced the line of his scar with his thumb. It was the kind of touch they allowed each other in the safety of Obi Wan’s quarters, on those rare occasions of solitude. “You, my dear, are a warm light in a very dark place.”)_

He had shot Obi Wan down- _blast him!_

With shuddering gasps, Cody vomited a meagre amount of ration bar and bile, sick splattering on his white armour. The shells of his brothers stared down at him. He shakily stood, replaced his helmet.   
_Marching far away._

“I should report to medical.”

No one spoke. 

* * *

When he thought about how he was going to die, Cody’s only preference was that it not be in a ship battle. He could stomach dying on a planet’s surface, but something about his body floating in space sat wrong with him. He’d told Obi Wan that, once. 

_(“How would I like to die?” Obi Wan stroked his beard thoughtfully. His legs were still tangled with Cody’s, and it said something about both of their dispositions that this was not considered strange pillow talk. “I would say surrounded by books, but the archivists would have my head if I desecrated their texts with death-related bodily fluids.”_

_“Not a problem if you’re dead already.”_

_“I supposed. It would rather make a mess, though. I suppose I’d have to settle for… a situation exactly like this, but when we both have far more grey hairs.”_

_Cody laughed, lifting himself up and over to straddle Obi Wan’s waist. “You get a new grey hair every time we get teamed up with the 501st.”_

_“Hm, quite right. We’d best make the most of things now, then, wouldn’t you say?”)_

He’d kept the rank of Commander all these years, even if he retained none of the privileges. It was enough to get him into one of the private officer’s decks. It was empty, and he limped to the viewport. In the distance, a red, sandy planet rotated. It had two bright moons. Cody knelt in front of the viewport. The planet was beautiful. He did not know that it was Tatooine. 

He pressed the muzzle of his blaster under his chin. 

He closed his eyes. 

_The force is one with me;_

He pictured Obi Wan’s face.

_I am one with the force._

He pulled the trigger. 


End file.
